Queen Ethelburga’s College ranks among the top educational institutions in the UK. Pro Audio Centre of Leeds, recently designed an Expandable Vertical Array (EVA) sound reinforcement system from Electro-Voice to support lectures and performances at the college, including live music and dance events. The EVA installation inside the 5,000 seat convertible sports hall combines high performance with a discrete design.
Pro Audio Centre carried out extensive acoustic room simulations to find the ideal sound solution for the hall. Based on these, the perfect set-up proved to be an EVA system consisting of two hangs of four EVA vertical line array elements with a 90° by 20° dispersion angle on each side of the stage. “The speakers from the EVA series are discrete, smart and offer a great full range sound with linear, front-to-back coverage,” commented Richard Leadbitter, Manager of Pro Audio Centre. “Thanks to the large variety of dispersion angles available, we could tailor the system exactly to the needs on site. And thanks to the adjustable hang angle, we didn’t have problems with reverberation or feedback – even at high volumes.”
Richard and his team relied on four compact Electro-Voice ZXA1 powered speakers as front fills complemented by AXM 12A powered stage monitors from Dynacord. To complement the system, four QRx 218S subwoofers were installed: “The QRx 218S subs provide such a natural sound. Nothing’s artificial, bassy or boomy. The sound is very pleasant to listen to and in combination with the EVA vertical line array, it doesn’t sound like two audio sources but a smooth, unified sound.” CP4000S amplifiers power all the system’s passive speakers.
The entire system is controlled by an Electro-Voice Dx46 FIR-Drive processor and an individual graphical user interface programmed by IRIS-Net supervision and control software. “The user interface is very intuitive”, commented Richard. “The system can be run without using IRIS-Net but if one wants full remote supervision and control or only wants to tweak a certain detail, it’s fantastic to have.”
